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Photo by Erin Nelson.
Blueroot Company
Jennifer Ryan, owner of Blueroot Company, photographed in downtown Birmingham on Jan. 13.
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Photo by Erin Nelson.
Blueroot Company
Chef Robin Bashinksy tosses a bowl of fresh cauliflower to be roasted at Blueroot Company’s kitchen in downtown Birmingham.
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Photo by Erin Nelson.
Blueroot Company
Roasted Brussel sprouts cool on a pan as the Blueroot Company staff prepares orders.
The Mountain Brook City Council at its Dec. 9 meeting approved a conditional use application that will allow a healthy, fast-casual eatery to open a pickup window in Mountain Brook Village.
Blueroot Company owner Jennifer Ryan, a Mountain Brook resident, said she hopes to open at 2822 Petticoat Lane in March. Blueroot will take residence in 180 square feet of the current Patina retail space at the corner of Culver and Canterbury roads.
Ryan said the pickup window will be open for breakfast and lunch, although exacts days and hours of operation have yet to be determined.
“We are excited to build a flagship in the city of Birmingham in 2020, but our first step was to really commit to and cover a nook of the market that had been really supportive from the beginning in a low-overhead, high-impact way,” Ryan said, “and that’s a walk-up coffee window in Mountain Brook Village.”
At the pickup window, Ryan will sell her nutrient-dense salads, grain bowls, superfood snacks, breakfast bites, coffee and other drinks in a grab-and-go setting. Coffee will start at $3, snacks at $4 and salads at $10, Ryan said, with breakfast items ranging from $4 to $8 and lunch items ranging from $5 to $12.
“The menu seeks to pull from our local farmers, and it also plays to very pure and simple ingredients,” Ryan said. “The focus for us is really showcasing food in its simplest, most unadulterated way.”
The pickup window will be Blueroot’s first brick-and-mortar location. That’s a big step for Ryan, who spent the majority of her career working in finance and technology before entering the culinary scene in 2019.
She moved from New York City to Birmingham in 2016 so her husband, Mike, an orthopedic surgeon at Andrews Sports Medicine, could complete a medical fellowship. They liked the area enough to stay in town once the fellowship ended.
As Mike began to build his practice, Jennifer continued to commute to Silicon Valley in California for her job with a cybersecurity company. Her travel-heavy schedule made her realize it was hard to find healthy food on the go in Birmingham. That didn’t sit well with Ryan, a former Princeton University volleyball player who prioritizes nutrition and health.
“This marriage of local farming, agriculture, locally sourced goods and local culinary talent were coming together in the fine dining scene,” she said, “but I just couldn’t figure out why they couldn’t come together in sort of the everyday experience, so that’s what set … the idea in motion about a year ago.”
Ryan quit her full-time job in early 2019 and began to develop her business concept. At first, her main objective was determining its viability through data collection and analysis.
“Restaurants often fail because they’re a passion project and they’ve got no legs outside of someone’s creative mind, or they go underfunded,” she said, “so I wanted to make sure this was a real idea that had legs.”
Ryan launched Blueroot last May at Pepper Place Farmers Market in downtown Birmingham. The success of that pop-up location encouraged her to move forward. She spent the next six to seven months popping up in different spots around town, particularly at fitness studios, and began to offer catering.
“The idea there was to really connect with the strong health and wellness base that’s been growing in Birmingham since I moved here,” she said.
Ryan has developed her menu with the help of chef Robin Bashinksy, a two-time James Beard award winner. They prepare all of their food at a commercial kitchen and deliver it fresh daily.
“I had a very clear view of the types of items I wanted, but it’s exactly where Robin’s creativity comes through,” Ryan said. “He’s able to take the everyday and transform it into something not only healthy but very unique and delicious.”
While Ryan calls the salads and grain bowls Blueroot’s “showstoppers,” she highlighted a few snacks that will also command attention. They include dark chocolate sea salt energy bites, spiced granola and “not your mama’s rice crispy treats.”
“We’ve taken the sugar and marshmallow out, and we’ve put raw almond butter and coconut and goji berries and pumpkin seeds in for a very nutrient-dense, healthy option,” Ryan said.
Many of Blueroot’s menu items are vegetarian-friendly and gluten-free, and they will be available when Ryan opens in Mountain Brook Village. She credits Patina owner Melanie Pounds, an interior designer, for helping make the space a reality. Ryan said Pounds had the idea to transform a former utility closet into the pickup window.
The location checked all of Ryan’s boxes.
“It was very important for me to find a small footprint that had very, very compelling street access, and that’s pretty hard,” she said.
Ryan plans to open a flagship location in Birmingham in mid-2020. She also is in the process of opening a pop-up location on 20th Street and Third Avenue North downtown.
“I really, really want us to be around for the long term,” Ryan said. “I think Blueroot has an opportunity to be extremely impactful in Birmingham and potentially even the Southeast, but we’ve got to do it right up front.”
For more information, visit bluerootco.com or search @thebluerootcompany on social media.
